The genre of the book is best described as a mix of science fiction and a bit of GameLit. In contrast to LitRPG, there are no (game) characters with statistics or skills. Instead, as a player, you take on so-called bots - robot bodies - for which you can then buy all sorts of equipment. However, destroyed then also means destroyed and you have to hope that a nearby comrade can repair the bot. You can also try to plunder the weapons. If I drop out of a bot, I can slip into another free bot from my faction anywhere in the game world.
Basically, the game is like a reality - only with bots instead of people. There is only what is produced by the station or the players and only with material that has been dismantled. No magic and nothing that comes out of nowhere. The whole thing is very close to the reality in the book. But I don't want to elaborate on that without spoiling.
The reality is that of a distant future. Humanity has colonized various systems and planets. The transport is carried out by spaceships via wormholes or fixed warp portals. There are various alliances and the population is nevertheless quite crowded. In all populated planets, the network is spread out - whether aboard a spaceship or on a planet - within a system, you can play in various VR worlds with the right equipment.
About the translation: As in the author's other series “The Ten Realms,” the translation is quite decent - especially when looking at the length of the book with over 750 pages. There are mistakes, but they have little effect on reading. For example, there are occasional inconsistent sentences, an inappropriate choice of words or sometimes a missing word. Another recurring error is most likely to be noticed in the chapter headings. The date used here appears regularly, divided into different lines, one below the other. Unpleasant but rather irrelevant for reading fun. As Falk, another reader wrote, a few good beta readers wouldn't have hurt. Nevertheless, overall, the translation is very neat and obviously not done by software (or revised very properly).
The story itself is also very well done. As described above, there is nothing that the player or the existing station did not produce themselves and only with material that was dismantled in the system. Accordingly, the story is largely based on base building or conquest, mining of raw materials, and production of bots and spaceships. However, there is no shortage of action — action-packed and extensive battles are the order of the day. Thanks to the clan of free players that the protagonist joins, in addition to his view (usually in ground combat), there are also the views of other protagonists - for example of the bridge of a combat spaceship.
The book is exciting and without long lengths. The introduction to reality and the game world (often a stumbling block with lots of, rather boring, basic knowledge) is fluently integrated. As a result, there are no boring passages where you are introduced to the world - everything just happens as the story progresses. The ending of this book is very surprising and could steer the story in a whole new direction.
The book gets a full 5 stars from me. Although the translation is not perfect, this has no effect on reading flow or readability. Especially when you consider that some other publishers would have at least shared this book and thus offered it at double the price - without offering much better quality.
